Читать книгу The Sublime Jester - Ezra S. Brudno - Страница 4

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Trivial as the incident was, Albert Zorn often recalled it in later years and mused upon it even at an age when man no longer cherishes memories of early boyhood. How could he forget it? At the time it was momentous, overshadowing all else.

On his way to school that memorable morning he rambled dreamily through the narrow streets of Gunsdorf, a thousand fantasies in his boyish brain. It seemed as if Alladin’s lamp had been rubbed. He was to live in a castle, instead of in the modest quarters back of his father’s humble shop on Schmallgasse and wear a velvet coat and lacquered top-boots with silver spurs! What else would his father do with all that money? From what he had gleaned of his parents’ conversation they had received word from Amsterdam that a kinsman had died there and left them a fortune running into millions.

He was soon approaching the river near which was located the Franciscan cloister that housed his school. The swiftly flowing stream came tumbling down over rock and boulder and unseen rivulets gurgled mysteriously beneath glacial crusts in shadowy places. For it was at the beginning of April when there were still clinging remnants of the long hoary winter. Albert sauntered slowly, wistfully, his daydreams, stimulated by the sudden expectancy, commingling with the awakened sentiments of spring.

“Good morning, Al—ber’,” that imp, Shorty Fritz, welcomed him as he entered the classroom.

Albert’s air-castles were rudely shaken and his face grew livid. Fritz had drawled his name in the screechy voice of Hans the ragman, who wandered from door to door every morning, preceded by his donkey, which he coaxed to greater celerity by the mystic cry that sounded like “Al—ber’—Al—ber’ ”, the real meaning of which was only known to Hans and the drudging beast.

Ignoring the tantalizing donkey-call, he walked up to his seat, dropped his books and remained standing moodily, his small bluish eyes narrowed, his long fair hair falling unevenly over his neck and forehead.

“O, Fritz, what’s the difference between Balaam’s ass and a zebra?” Long Kunz, another classmate, called across the room.

“Balaam’s ass spoke Hebrew and the zebra speaks Zebrew,” returned Fritz with mock gravity.

Albert was still busying himself with his books, swallowing lumps and feigning indifference, but the allusions to his racial extraction pierced him like a dagger. He had heard this witticism before and it had never failed to lacerate his sensitive heart.

“Then what’s the difference between Hanse’s donkey and his namesake, Al—ber’?”

“None that I can see,” was the retort.

Still the victim of these sallies refrained from combat. Though usually not given to curbing his tongue—and his tongue was as sharp as that of any one in the class—he would not bandy words with his arch-enemies this morning. There was hope in the boy’s heart that the forthcoming inheritance would soon liberate him from these surroundings altogether.

Presently Christian Lutz’s tender arm was around his shoulders. Christian was his favorite classmate and always took his part in his encounters with those vexatious youngsters. While Albert was the quicker with his tongue, Christian was more ready with his fist.

“I have heard your father has become a millionaire,” Christian said. “Who’s left him this fortune—your father’s father?”

“Not my father’s father,” laughed Albert, the remembrance of the inheritance at once banishing the momentary bitterness from his heart. “My father’s father had no fortune to leave—he was a poor little Jew, with long whiskers as his only belongings.”

Though uttered in a soft, jocular voice, and only intended for Christian’s ears, it reached those of Fritz.

“Ha—ha!” he tittered. “Did you hear that, boys? Al—ber’s grandfather was a poor little Jew with long whiskers.”

“A poor little Jew with long whiskers!”

“A poor little Jew with long whiskers!”

“A poor little Jew with long whiskers!”

This refrain caught up by Long Kunz was accompanied by intermittent beating of the desks with drum-like regularity.

In a moment the classroom was in a wild uproar. Whistling, catcalls, imitations of braying asses, of squealing pigs, of crowing cocks, of bleating sheep, of neighing horses filled the air. The boys scampered and jumped and flung inkstands at the blackboard and kicked at the chairs to Fritz’s rhythmic tune of “A poor little Jew with long whiskers!”

“Silence!”

It was the intimidating voice of Father Scher.

The youngsters, frightened by the sudden entrance of the schoolmaster, made a dash for their seats and in their mad rush capsized the benches that came down with resounding crashes.

“Order!” shouted the schoolmaster.

Father Scher stood at his desk, his right arm raised menacingly, his smooth face crimson with rage, his eyes fairly popping out of their sockets, his saucer-like skull-cap shoved to the back of his shaven head.

Ominous silence, terror in every countenance.

The priest’s eyes shifted from side to side, taking in the overturned benches, the scattered text-books, the ink-bespattered blackboard.

“Who started this?”

No answer. The black-robed instructor took a step forward.

“Who started this?”

Restive shuffling of feet was the only response.

“I’ll flay the hide off everyone of you if you don’t tell me at once who started this disorder,” the angered teacher cried.

“Al—ber! Al—ber!” Hanse’s voice came from outside. It sounded like a voice in a deep forest. An irrepressible snicker ran through the room.

“Who did this—who did this?”

Scher was moving along the aisle, searching guilt in every countenance. Reaching Albert he halted and glowered at him. There was still mist in the boy’s eyes and his lips were twitching.

“So it’s you, is it? You know what to expect and are whimpering ahead of time, hey? You are always the source of all mischief in the class.” His steady eyes were peering at the boy’s agitated face. Then he added, “Now if you didn’t start this, who did?”

The insinuation increased the bitterness in the boy’s heart. He was biting the lining of his lip to hold his tears in check, but not a sound escaped him.

“Won’t you answer me?” The master’s voice was threatening.

Much as he hated Long Kunz and Shorty Fritz his pride forbade him to betray them.

Silently, grimly, the infuriated priest turned around and walked back toward the blackboard, the swishing of his cassock striking against his heels registering his measured, determined step. To the right of the blackboard stood a large, heavy, gnarled yellowish stick, an ever present warning to the class. Gripping the rattan firmly in his hand the priest faced about and retraced his steps, presently standing in front of Albert.

“Well, Albert?”

The instructor’s stormy blue eyes were riveted upon the boy and the heavy cane was suspended in the air.

Albert only tightened his lips more firmly.

“Speak!”

Scher’s voice trembled with wrath.

A scarcely perceptible smile appeared on the lower part of the boy’s face, which however did net escape the tantalized master.

Bang!

The stick came down with a crashing blow, but as Albert quickly turned aside it struck the table nearby and broke.

Baffled by defeat Father Scher grew more angered and swung the broken end of the cane up and down blindly, striking at his victim until he was exhausted, panting audibly.

Brandishing the fragment in his hand for a final blow, he missed his aim and his body swung around, sending his skull-cap to the floor. As he stooped to pick up his headgear—his shaven crown exposed to the gaze of the irreverent youngsters—the awed tension vanished and derisive laughter broke loose. In spite of his pain Albert’s jeering voice sounded louder than all the rest. His little eyes snapped diabolic mockery in his glittering pupils. From the rear of the room came the mimicking of a grunting sucking pig.

Confused and out of breath, Scher turned from side to side and his rolling eyes finally focused upon the grimacing face of that ragamuffin, Long Kunz.

“Take this!” the master aspirated and gave the boy a sharp cut. Kunz emitted a shriek that rang throughout the cloister.

“I didn’t do anything,” he wailed, scratching the smarting spot on his left shoulder—“it was he that started all the trouble.”

“Who is he?” demanded the instructor.

He brandished the cane, but without letting it fall on Kunz.

“Who is he?” he repeated.

“Al—ber’ ” Kunz mischievously piped up, drying his tears.

“So it is you—hey? I thought it couldn’t be anyone else.”

He turned upon Albert anew, the scorn of vengeance in his metallic voice.

“He said his grandfather was a little Jew with long whiskers and made everybody laugh,” added Kunz, seeking to curry the teacher’s favor.

“Hold your tongue!” Scher silenced the informer.

Then, again turning upon Albert, he grabbed him by his coat collar and dragged him to the corner of the room, showering blows as he pulled the boy after him.

“I only said this in jest to Christian and they began on me,” Albert cried defiantly and broke away from the priest.

The master walked back to his desk, breathing hard and muttering unintelligible syllables.

“Attention!” he presently called and rapped for order.

His blanched face, his piercing eyes, the skull-cap set awry on his shaven crown, the lead-edged ruler in his hand, made the class realize that he was no longer to be trifled with. There had been strange rumors about the ferocity of the master, so when he gave the order to fall in line for divine service every pupil had his left foot forward ready to march.

Albert was the last in line. For although his mother had had him excused from religious exercises, he always joined the class in the morning prayers. Not that he prayed or participated in the singing of hymns, but he loved the ceremonies of the cloister. There was something in the smell pervading the old stone walls, in the reverberating tones of the organ, in the soft light sifting in through the stained glass windows, in the statuary and effigies—everything about the monastic church filled him with mystery and with an indefinable sensuousness that, while it repelled him, caught his fancy and stirred in his soul a longing he was unable to fathom. The sound and color and scent and mystery of the church aroused in him the same emotion he felt when reading about Greek gods and goddesses. The chimes of the bells, the rich colors of the clergy’s robes at high mass, the pealing organ and the melodies of the choir—everything connected with the Franciscan cloister was so different from his father’s church, which seemed so colorless and held nothing to stir his imagination.

But no sooner did the chapel services commence than his mind began to wander. The prayers were meaningless to him even at that early age. The Catholic liturgy was distasteful to him. For boy that he was—scarcely more than eleven—he had already reasoned on matters of faith, and he had heard at home many a discussion about Voltaire and Rousseau, and of Kant’s Kritik der reinen Vernunft, which was then debated in every house of culture.

That morning more than on other mornings his brain was tortured by a thousand cross-currents. So many ideas crowded in upon his wearied brain that no single one was clear. They were all in confusion. The inheritance, his classmates’ insults, the flogging—they all seemed fast scudding clouds.

On his way out of school, Albert lagged behind under the high arches of the cloister, rancor in his breast. Tears of mortification were in his eyes.

He soon found himself before the tall image of the Christ which stood on a high pedestal under these arches. It was carved of wood, the face hideously distorted, the head hanging limply like a wilted sunflower, and a smear of blood between the projecting ribs was intended as a realistic touch. The morning sun, slanting under the vaults, fell upon the nails driven through the palms and feet and enhanced the ghastly figure. An unwelcome thought shot through the boy’s brain. No, no, he could not believe it; he could not believe what Father Scher had told the class about the Crucified. No, it could not be true. His people could not have stabbed the man who wore the crown of thorns and driven nails through his hand and feet. He knew his father and mother, who were most tender-hearted, and his grandfather, Doctor Hollmann, and his Uncle Joseph, both of whom had laid their lives down in their efforts to save the people in the last plague.

“They are lying—they are lying,” he muttered under his breath, almost sobbing—“all of them are lying—the priest and his books and Kunz and Fritz. Only the likes of them could mock and spit and torment and then put the blame upon others—”

He suddenly halted. He remembered the Hebrew school, which he attended after the hours at the cloister.

“Pokad—pokadto—pokadli—” he began to mumble the conjugation of the Hebrew verb he was then learning. Foreign as the language was to him he learned it much more easily than “the language of the dead Romans”, or even with greater facility than “the language of the Gods”, as he was wont to call Greek.

The Hebrew school was in a narrow alley back of Schmallgasse. It was a small square chamber which served as a school room by day and as a living room for the teacher and his family at night. It had been recently whitewashed—Passover was coming—and the Mizrach (a picture of Jerusalem with the Wailing Wall in the foreground) hung conspicuously upon the wall facing east—a tawny, fly-specked patch on a background of bluish white. Save for a long rectangular table flanked by unpainted wooden benches, and the teacher’s stool at the head of it, the room was bare.

Although he often mimicked the long bearded teacher, there was gladness in Albert’s heart, a gladness accompanied by a feeling of peace and security, as he wended his way to this school. No one mocked him here, no one imitated the ragman’s donkey-call. Here his very name gave him added distinction. Here he was a little prince, whom everybody loved and whose every flippant remark was carried from mouth to mouth, accompanied by convulsive laughter.

When he entered the Hebrew school the class was chanting the Shir H’Shirim, that exquisite lyric poem known as the Song of Songs. For it was Friday, when the class sang the Song of Solomon in the quaint, traditional melody of the Babylonians. The teacher, at the head of the table, was swaying his body from side to side, leading his class in his strangely tuneful sing-song.

Albert slid into his seat and joined in the chanting, though he perceived the furtive glances of his classmates, denoting even greater respects than ever. For they had all heard of the rumored inheritance.

“ ‘Look not upon me because I am black,’ ” they sang lustily from the Hebrew text. “ ‘Because the sun hath looked upon me; my mother’s children were angry with me and made me keeper of the vineyard, but my own vineyard I have not kept.’ ”

While his lips were lisping the liquid syllables of the poetical allegory his mind wandered to the sunny land of Canaan, the cradle of his people.

A pause followed; the teacher emitted a soft “oi” and soon proceeded with the next chapter.

“ ‘I am the rose of Sharon, the lily of the valley,’ ” the class struck up in lively sing-song, “ ‘As the lily is among the thorns so is my love among the daughters ... Stay me with flagons, comfort me with apples, for I am lovesick. For, lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone.’ ”

His flitting fancy was not following the words, but the pictures they conjured up in his brain. He was catching his breath, his spirits were astir. There was languor in his being. His sorrows were gone, the enchanting Song of Solomon caught his soul in its dulcet waves and rocked him into a trance ...